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Saturday, February 14, 2015

Creating an ‘Urban Oasis’ in Sahara

With
‘urban sprawling’ becoming an omnipresent phenomenon, there’s been a heavy surge
in automobile-dependent communities across the globe. Morocco’s City Sand
Tower, a vertical city, designed by Manal Rachdi Oxo Architects and Nicolas
Laisne Associes of Paris is a concept that could reverse this trend.

A
project under study, City Sand Tower is much more than just a tower. It’s a
promise for a greener future, as it brings down the carbon footprints of a huge
chunk of population. And, the concept of
vertical city itself assures a better quality of life, when compared with conventional
urban life. When it is realized, it holds the promise of a fully-autonomous,
energy-efficient ‘city’ that boasts of its own vertical farm inside!

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Going
by illustrations, the tower’s dimensions are phenomenal and its vertical
expanse seems to be challenging the horizontal expanse of the desert. With its
7,80,000 sq. m. surface and 450 m height, the tower’s overwhelming presence
ensures the kind of attention that such ‘green’ concepts deserve in current times.

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The
tower stands unique not just because of its dimension; but also because of its
form. When viewed from a distance, its irregular form makes one wonder as to what
it is! Its rock-like exteriors seem to be imparting strength to its imposing
structure. Its highly protective, ochre-shaded
exteriors seem to be blending seamlessly with the desert sand and remind onlookers
of the monochromatic imagery presented by certain desert settlements. External
façade, with shades and sensors incorporated in it, would lend itself for
generating/harnessing unconventional energy.

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A
refreshing water basin that reflects the atrium inside, would welcome the
‘citizens’ to the tower’s premises. The exterior of the inner tower of the
building would lend itself for vertical farming and would be covered with
vegetation.

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With
homes, markets, farms, hotels, offices, hospitals, play-grounds and all other
components of a city, finding shelter under one roof, vertical cities are bound
to enliven the time-stressed lives of urban population, by bestowing upon them,
the gift of ‘quality-time’.

Would
this ‘under-study’ project be actualized the way we envisage it?